Jimmy "Duck" Holmes

Gonna Get Old Someday

(Fat Possum)

Record Review by Adam McKibbin

Mississippi’s Fat Possum Records has branched out a little bit in recent years, but they couldn’t stay closer to their roots than Gonna Get Old Someday, the sort of blues album that encapsulates everything the label has been doing so well for years:  celebrating the blues in a way that isn’t just enjoyable but educational.  Their best albums are like cracking open a time capsule – or, perhaps more appropriately, a lost box of Alan Lomax recordings.  Indeed, Lomax had put Holmes to tape all the way back in the ‘70s, but “Duck” was never that interested in pursuing his artistry.  He was plenty busy with his day job: running the Blue Front Café in rural Bentonia, Mississippi.  Bentonia’s population doesn’t even number 1,000, but the city gave birth to its own idiosyncratic, minor-tuned blues style (“Bentonia School”), pioneered by native son Skip James.

The Blue Front is pictured on the front of Gonna Get Old Someday, and diving into the album is like walking right through the front door; it’s the sort of thing that makes you feel like your clothes will smell like smoke by the time the album plays itself through.  Holmes is said to be the last living link to the Bentonia style, but that’s more the sort of detail for blues enthusiasts and historians to drool over.  Casual fans will be drawn in simply by the classic feel of his songs, from the ragged “as-is” nature of the recording to the deep ache in his wail and moan.  There’s not much variety – aside from the jaunty “Done Broke Down,” a standout that’s well-placed in the album’s center.  That’s followed up by “Could Have Been Married,” an anthem for Bill Maher and other lifelong bachelors out there. 

Gonna Get Old Someday works whether you’re alone on the front porch lazily greeting the dawn of a new day or you’re on a crowded back porch reveling in the closing hours of the night.  If you can’t pay a physical visit to the Blue Front, it’s the next best thing.